Prevailing Sakawa Rate In Suame Alarming; This Is What Suame Students Now Do

Post by Stephanie Ekowa

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Sakawa has grown from something daring and risky to a profession for many students in the Suame constituency of the Ashanti region. It has been reported that students in Suame are abandoning the classrooms for internet scam, popularly known as Sakawa, after one of their colleagues hit a jackpot of GHC1billion.

It has also been gathered that one of the most affected schools in the region is the Suame King Faisal Islamic junior high school, where the school authorities are calling on government to intervene on the situation. In the school mentioned above, most of the students do not return to their classrooms after the first break.

So many students have dropped out of school, after having hit a jackpot from the fraudulent act. A teacher from the school said that students of the school now flood every internet cafe available looking for the fastest means to succeed through the various online scams. A teacher who spoke to Ultimate FM, said that many teachers have attempted to stop the students from indulging in the act to no avail.

According to him, if you go to the internet cafe you will see students during school hours, glued to the system, looking for whom to scam and if a teacher should try to stop them, they will embarrass the person. He added that the more a particular teacher tries to stop students from the act, the more the students hate him and so teachers are reluctant to pursue them since they do not want to create enemies for themselves.

The school authorities are therefore calling on government to make laws to shut internet cafes from morning till mid afternoon, for the students to turn up for classes, as one or two people cannot control the obstinate students.

Sakawa is a widespread practice in Ghana which combines modern internet-based fraud practices with religious rituals. It was initially referred to specific online scams but has since broadened to include all types of online frauds and scams mainly targeting foreigners. The bizarre act prevalent in the Suame constituency is surely becoming something to worry about, and the authorities are calling on the Ghanaian government to act fast before things get out of hand.